The World Health Organization estimates that vaccines prevented at least 10 million deaths in just five years between 2010 and 2015. It says vaccines have been one of the biggest success stories of modern medicine.

End of tens of millions of lives

The World Health Organization (WHO) is so concerned that it has listed this trend as one of the 10 threats to global health in 2019.

How was vaccination discovered?

Before vaccines existed, the world was a far more dangerous place, with millions dying each year to now preventable illnesses.

The Chinese were the first to discover an early form of vaccination in the 10th Century.

Smallpox was a highly contagious infectious disease that killed about 30% of those who contracted it. Survivors were often left scarred or blind. It killed huge numbers of people until it was eradicated in 1979. About 300 million people died from the disease in the 20th Century.

End of smallpox

In 1796 Jenner carried out an experiment on eight-year-old James Phipps.

The doctor inserted pus from a cowpox wound into the boy, who soon developed symptoms.

Once Phipps had recovered, Jenner inserted smallpox into the boy but he remained healthy. The cowpox had made him immune.

In 1798, the results were published and the word vaccine – from the Latin ‘vacca’ for cow – was coined.

What have been the successes?

Vaccines have helped drastically reduce the damage done by many diseases in the past century.

About 2.6m people were dying from measles every year before the first vaccination for the disease was introduced in the 1960s. Vaccination resulted in an 80% drop in measles deaths between 2000 and 2017 worldwide, according to the WHO.

Polio is a highly infectious virus that hits the nervous system – the number of cases has fallen 99% since an eradication drive started in 1988. Until then, “Iron lungs” – coffin-like cabinet respirators – were commonplace in polio wards.

End of polio

Why do some people refuse vaccination?

Suspicion of vaccines has been around almost as long as modern vaccines themselves.

In the past people were sceptical for religious reasons, because they thought vaccination was unclean, or because they felt it infringed on their freedom of choice.

In the 1800s so-called anti-vaccination leagues popped up across Britain, pushing for alternative measures to fight disease, such as isolating patients.

He was fined several times for refusing to get his daughter vaccinated. Tebb was also paranoid about being buried before being confirmed dead, and founded the London Association for the Prevention of Premature Burial.

End of William Tebb

One of the key figures in the recent history of the anti-vaccination movement is Andrew Wakefield.

In 1998, the London-based doctor published a report falsely linking autism and bowel disease to the MMR vaccine.

In the US as a whole, there were already more than twice the number of measles cases from January to early June 2019 as there were in 2018.

End of largest outbreaks

England’s most senior doctor warned last year that too many people were being fooled by misleading information about vaccines on social media, and US researchers found that Russian bots were being used to sow discord online by posting false information about vaccines.

A study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that “a significant portion of the online discourse about vaccines may be generated by malicious actors”. Researchers reviewed more than 250 tweets about vaccination from accounts linked to a St Petersburg-based organisation named in a US indictment over alleged election meddling.

End of Russian bots

The proportion of the world’s children who receive recommended vaccines has remained unchanged at 85% for the past few years, according to the World Health Organization.

The WHO says vaccines continue to prevent between two and three million deaths worldwide every year.

The biggest challenges to vaccination, and the lowest rates of immunisation, are in countries with a recent history of conflict and extremely poor healthcare systems, including Afghanistan, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But the WHO has also identified complacency as a key issue in developed countries; put simply people have forgotten the harm a disease can do.

Related

Related Articles

Image copyright PA Image caption Delayed discharges take up much needed hospital beds More than 200 people died in Northern Ireland’s hospitals in 2018 while waiting to be discharged. A report by the charity Marie Curie also showed delayed discharges resulted in patients spending thousands of extra days in hospital. x This was despite the […]

Media playback is unsupported on your device x Media captionThe body bag saving lives in DR Congo’s Ebola outbreak There can be few greater challenges than tackling a lethal epidemic. But imagine trying to do so in a conflict zone ravaged by extreme poverty, insecurity and poor communications amid a population where health workers are […]

Image caption Caroline Wyatt visited Prof Robin Franklin to find out more about a drug that might help stop the progression of MS “I don’t like to think of the future. It’s such a big question mark. I just keep living in the present.” Karine Mather was diagnosed with MS when she was 27, although […]